“Training was all I could think about. One Sunday when I found the stadium locked, I broke in and worked out in the freezing cold. Every painful set, every extra rep, was a step toward my goal of winning.”

“Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points.”

“Then he thought himself unhappy, but happiness was all in the future; now he felt that the best happiness was already in the past.”

“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”

“Pay attention to what you’re saying. Are you blessing your life? Or are you cursing it?”

“What do you always think about? What do you think you can do easily? What do you find peace in your heart to do? Watch those things carefully because among them is something on which you can turn the entire environment surrounding you for your success.”

“Involuntarily it appeared to me that there, somewhere, was someone who amused himself by watching how I lived for thirty or forty years: learning, developing, maturing in body and mind, and how, having with matured mental powers reached the summit of life from which it all lay before me, I stood on that summit -- like an arch-fool -- seeing clearly that there is nothing in life, and that there has been and will be nothing. And he was amused... But whether that "someone" laughing at me existed or not, I was none the better off. I could give no reasonable meaning to any single action or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I could have avoided understanding this from the very beginning -- it has been so long known to all. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort?... How can man fail to see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.”

“They displayed a sophistication in warfare as good as anything he had ever encountered, and he had been trained by the best fighters in the universe then seasoned in battles where only the superior few survived.”

“A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.”

“A house divided cannot stand.”

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.”

“The person who gives with a smile is the best giver because God loves a cheerful giver.”

“The seed of a bamboo tree is planted, fertilized and watered. Nothing happens for the first year. There´s no sign of growth. Not even a hint. The same thing happens - or doesn´t happen - the second year. And then the third year. The tree is carefully watered and fertilized each year, but nothing shows. No growth. No anything. For eight years it can continue. Eight years! Then - after the eight years of fertilizing and watering have passed, with nothing to show for it - the bamboo tree suddently sprouts and grows thirty feet in three months!”

“Suppose that the earthly lives she and I shared for a few years are in reality only the basis for, or prelude to, or earthly appearance of, two unimaginable, supercosmic, eternal somethings.”

“The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small.”